history notes on modern europe

8/13/2019 History notes on Modern Europe

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The Napoleonic Wars

17991815

Took place against the First, Second and Third coalition at different time periods.

The second coalition was made up of Russia, Great Britain, Austria, Portugal, The Ottoman Empire

and the Kingdom of Naples

During this period the very definition of war was to change, and move towards modern warfare

warfare was no longer the sport of kings, instead it moved towards conscription and the idea of total

war and the entire nation in arms.

Rifles

Example of changesat the beginning, army uniforms were bright but at the end of the war, the

colours of the uniforms darkened and this was the beginning of military camouflage.

By 1808 Napoleon seemed to be the master of Europe however he then made some vital mistake s

which led to his downfall:

Dethroning King Charles IV of Spain he made his brother Joseph Bonaparte King, causing a revolt +

guerrilla war in Spain

During the Peninsular war (1808-1813) the Spanish Guerillas aided by British troops under

Wellington and Portuguese allies drove the French out and eventually invaded southern France.

Napoleon decide to invade Russia in 1812 with an Army of 500,000 men and although he defeatedthe Russians at the battle of Borodino in 1812 and took Moscow he was forced to retreat due to

weather, costing him most of his army.

Surrounded by enemies on all sides with his best troops dead Napoleon was forced to abdicate in

1814.

Napoleon staged a daring return to power and tried to reverse the outcome of the war at the battle

of Waterloo (18 June 1815). Waterloo was a bloody battle which saw his remaining elite guard

destroyed and Napoleon exiled to St Helena from where he was never to return, marking the end of

the Napoleonic wars.

The Battle of Trafalgar

21st

Oct 1805

France and Britain had been at war with each other for a while, in 1802 both countries signed a true

but neither expected it to last

Russia Austria and Britain formed the third coalition against in July 1805, which started when France

wouldnt decolonise Haiti which the British were against.


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So Napoleon readied his ships and an army to invade Britain, believing that he would crush the Royal

Navy.

However when the French left the Spanish Mediterranean port on 21/10/1805 they saw the Royal

Navy and turned back to port. This left their vessels vulnerable and enabled the British to cut the

French and Spanish line of battle leading to most of their ships being captured or destroyed.

But Nelson (leader of the British attack) was killed by a Frenchmen.

English had to take a vital decision allowing the win

Significance: Proved British had great army and boosted moral

Malthusianism

In the late 18th

century/early 19th

century, there was a lot of economic opportunity e.g expansion of

cottage industry = couples marry earlier = have more children = population rise

English clergyman Thomas Malthus predicted in his Essay on the principle of population that

natural checks on population growth (e.g. war, poverty, famine + infant mortality) would become

less significant and that the pop. of the world would grow way beyond the amount of nourishment

available, e.g. food supplies would grow 1-2-3-4 and pop would multiply 1-2-4-6-16-32.

Rise of pop put a lot of pressure on the land and a lot of land holdings were small and profitably

farming had not yet existed.

However on the other side of the argument, people had already started to limit the size of their

families and Malthus did not take into account the rise of agricultural productivity.

Ester Boserup

Did not think about the growing use of contraceptionJames Boswell English writer did.

The three-field crop rotation system

Agricultural growth which had been steady until the 14th

century slowed down until the mid-15th

century due to the Black Death but once the population began to grow the plots that had been

abandoned were ploughed once more.

The three field system left about a third of the land fallow (unplanted) to make sure it could

replenish its fertility during growing seasonincreasing agricultural yields

This method was used in bigger plots, and this method was also an example of how farming

techniques and tools improved during the 15th

century. This method remained the same until the

19th

century which shows its significance in modern European history.

Industrialisation

Took place in the first half of the 19th

century


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By definition is the social and economic ch+ange that transforms a society from an agrarian one to

an industrial one.

Society changed from rural or urban, workers moved to cities (urbanization) where money was

made from manufacturing

The reason that this time period was seen as a revolution was due to the developments made in this

time, especially in manufacturing which allowed quicker + cheaper ways of manufacturing. There

were also more efficient ways of doing things (e.g. steam engine) using new methods and materials

This and gains made from imperialism led to Britain becoming the most advanced nation in the

world

There are two major schools of thought in this field; one is that by increasing employment and

lowering prices of goods = immediately improved the way ordinary people lived. And the other is

that industrial capitalism was making living conditions worse for workers due to the no. of people

depending on wage labour increasing faster than job possibilities and pay.

The Congress of Vienna

1814-1815

After Napoleons defeat, the Third Alliance countries came together to re -establish peace in Europe

in the hope that by forcing a treaty upon Francethey could prevent Europe from having a

revolution in France/elsewhere

Britain got Nepal

Russia got given Poland

Prussia got Italian peninsula

The countries making this treaty held quite conservative values, hence the Congress represented a

conservative standing against liberalism (which implied the absence of government constraints that

could interfere with the individual), nationalism and so forth. They made ethnic and national reforms

in the name of popular sovereignty for example creating strong Border States (e.g. the Netherlands).

Back to the old waysmonarchy resorted, Pope = more power

Concert of Europemeetings in future, talk about issues

The significance of this was that the members of this treaty signed an agreement which enforced a

collective security system that would prevent anyone ever from building such a large European

empire.

Prince Klemens von Metternich

First an Austrian ambassador

He was known for his great power of observation and agreeable manner; he rose to power throughthe series of conflicts between Austria and France. He was even sent by the Austrian emperor to


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represent Austria and face Napoleons threats and ambitious plans where he was made a prisoner

was war in 1809 during the Great War between Austria and France.

He was made a Prince due to how he diplomatically dealt with Napoleon when Austrias empire was

greatly reduced in size, and did not give in to Napoleons wills and instead went to war with France.

He was known was being one of the best diplomats of his times, especially at the congress of Vienna

where he ensured peace and preserved harmony. He was the leading statesman of Europe due to

how he solved difficult issues like ones of German and Italian affairs.

However his downfall was his support of autocracy when the general political development in

Europe was towards democracy.

The Great Reform Act

1867

Compared to the first voting reform act in 1832, this reform act had more of an impact due to the

fact that in 1832 members of the parliament were reluctant to make extreme changes because of

opposition.

The growing no. of middle-class voters wanted to end imbalanced aristocratic influence in politics

hence supported the suffrage

Gladstone, liberal leader, knew that the great social forces were for increasing the suffrage however

he only wanted artisans and skilled workers to be allowed the vote but not all males, hence

freedom in moderation.

The conservatives feared that this would lead the liberals to gain more support therefore the leader

of the party, Disraeli proposed that the vote be given to each head of a household which doubled

the number of eligible voters in Britain.

This however still left Britain short of universal male suffrage

The significance of this was the impact it reformed voting rights as the working class majority were

given more rights but on the other hand women were still not included in this bill.

Official nationalism

Official nationalism is promoted through federal and state governments, via legalized social policies

promoted into law.

Popular nationalism however is promoted informally by members of the state through common

interests and is not part of formalized processes.

This was the popular form of nationalism in the 19thcentury. Because nationalism in itself was so

popular during this time period, it meant that the empires in this era had to convert to nationalism due

to the threat of popular nationalism.

This was significant because nationalism did not bode well with the imperialism which some of these

empires (e.g. Russia, Britain, Japan) followed. This led to the destruction of polyglot (Multilanguage)empires like Russia or rendered the monarchy virtually useless (like with Britain and Japan).


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Giuseppe Garibaldi

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